


Eviction

by PurpleMoon3



Series: Bite Sized Bits of Fic [11]
Category: The Dresden Files - Jim Butcher
Genre: Community: comment_fic, For Ill, Gen, Is Timeywimey, Misc. OC's - Freeform, Post Summer Knight, Pre Death Masks, The Nevernever, homeless
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-05-06
Packaged: 2018-10-28 13:32:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10832304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleMoon3/pseuds/PurpleMoon3
Summary: Harry's old landlady goes to live with her daughter, and the new management evicts him.





	Eviction

**Author's Note:**

> Fill for the [prompt:](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/813969.html?thread=103365265#t103365265) _any book. any. Temporarily homeless_ at the Bite Sized Bits of Fic. Also, the eviction process is much more complicated than portrayed. Some artistic liberties have been taken.

**The** Beetle’s engine is still running when Harry leaps from the vehicle with his long legs eating the distance to his open door like a Labrador going after table scraps. He nearly trips over a man sitting on the stairs that lead to his basement apartment, but quick reflexes have him steadying himself on the handrail before he can crack his skull on cement. The air smells slightly of ozone, of wards meant to dissuade unwelcome elements having reached their limit, and as Harry’s feet hit the bottom and turn toward the gross violation of privacy, he opens his mouth to yell-  
  
“You must be Harry Dresden. The Wizard.” The woman cuts him off with narrow eyes and a sneer that detracts nothing from her beauty. Her skin is that impossible shade of peach that never burns, merely cycles through different shades of tan, and she is wearing a suit jacket like a second skin. She taps a pen against the clipboard in her arms and gestures a negative as a man in coveralls comes out of Harry’s bedroom raising the box with his rock collection in askance. “Excellent. You can collect that beast of a cat and save me the trouble of calling animal control.”  
  
There are many things Harry would like to say, the least of which is _Get Out Of My House_ , but all that comes out is, “The hell?!”  
  
The sneer turns into a little frown. Harry takes three steps and neatly swipes the hand carved box of rocks out of Coverall’s arms. The man raises his hands and backs off, wandering over to Harry’s currently empty bookshelf. All the books have been placed into boxes, the neat order of readability ruined, and that fact sets the hairs on the back of his neck to attention. “Mr. Dresden. I have been attempting to contact you for the last two weeks.”  
  
“I was out of town. On a job.”  
  
She goes back to sneering. “You are nearly three months behind on rent. There is both pet and water damage, not to mention the irregular appliances. I have not even begun cataloging what you have done to the sub-basement. When you didn’t make the court date it was assumed you had skipped town.”  
  
Three months? Pet damage? It was Harry’s turn to frown. He’d been in Louisiana chasing down a redcap, if not The Redcap, when it decided to play cat and mouse in the Nevernever… “Mrs. S said partial payments were fine. Until I got back on my feet again.”  
  
“Do you have that in writing? Because I assure you, Mr. Dresden, I have looked over all of Mrs. Spunkelcrief’s paperwork and while I can find records of incomplete payments I find nothing pertaining to their legality.”  
  
“I-” Harry cut off, swallowing. His head spun as the man he’d passed on the stairs walked in and placed a hand on his shoulder. “You can’t do this. You can’t.”  
  
“I’m sorry, son.” The man was balding, and Harry blinked as a half formed memory tickled at the back of his head. He’d never met the man in person, but Murph had pointed him out once or twice at crime scenes. “But the I’s have been dotted and the T’s crossed. Judge ruled in her favor. You can grab whatever you can carry; that Cat of yours actually sent the other mover to the hospital for stitches when he tried to pry it out of the bathroom.”

Numbly, Harry looked around his apartment. Three months. He knew he hadn’t been paying much attention to his finances after Susan left, hadn’t been paying much attention to anything, and then with Mab’s favor and fallout from that but… three months? What to take? “What’s going to happen to the rest?”  
  
“Liquidation.” The woman he was starting to loath piped up. She was eyeing his Star Wars poster and making little notations. “It’s going to cost a small fortune to make this place reasonably livable - why on earth did you carve doodles into the support struts?”  
  
Stars above, Harry was tired. He’d wanted to come home and sleep. Instead he’d come home to find he had no home. A nudge at his elbow got him moving again as he made his way to the bedroom and stripped the sleeve off a pillow. It was an action he’d done hundreds of times before. It was something he’d thought he’d never have to do again. He bit his lip, looked around the cramped space, and ducked out of sight of the Sheriff as he retrieved the box with his few irreplaceable, personal belongings in it. Some changes of clothes, and then he pried up the trapdoor and descended for Bob and a few less than legal potion ingredients that the lack of electricity helped to hide.  
  
At some point, Harry realized he was back in the Blue Beetle sitting with Mister purring discontentedly in the passenger seat. The expletive that burst from his mouth was drowned out by his fist slamming into the Volkswagen's horn.


End file.
